"In a little-noticed announcement in October, Health Canada signalled its intention to raise the fees that drug makers will have to pay when they want to get a new medication on the market.

These user fees currently fund about 50 per cent of Health Canada’s operating budget for regulating prescription drugs. Health Canada wants to increase that to 90 per cent. In addition, it will rebate 25 per cent of that fee if it fails to review new drug applications within an established period of time.

On the surface, charging companies for public services seems to make sense. After all, riders on public transit help pay for some of the costs.

However, there are significant differences. Transit riders are individuals with little power to influence the transit agency."

Enforcing our country’s anti-trust laws to stop the corporate consolidation and cutbacks in local news coverage would help to stanch the bleeding in the short term, but Canada’s Competition Bureau has shown little interest in taking such action.

More long-term measures, similar to those taken in other countries, are also needed to strengthen media policy in Canada to help protect news from the depredations of Darwinian capitalism and encourage the growth of digital journalism as old media fade away.

Whether our government has the foresight needed for this kind of bold action should become clear in 2018. More likely is continued inaction given Ottawa’s demonstrable blind spot when it comes to journalism."

Indigenous Community Justice will focus on defining Indigenous justice, as well as examining Indigenous practices for achieving and delivering justice, community structures, governance models and how they interact — and sometimes clash — with the ideals of Canada’s justice system. "

The report, which looked only at the Jean Marie formation north of Fort Nelson, concluded that “there may be as many as 235 instances of visible gas migration and 900 total instances of gas migration in the north zone of B.C.”"

"The changes made last year to the Canada Pension Plan provide little benefit for low-income earners, says a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy released Wednesday.

The study, titled Unfinished Business: Pension Reform in Canada, found that an examination of how the CPP changes interact with the rest of Canada’s retirement system, such as the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income pensioners, should be conducted."

Poverty and income inequality increased in Canada during the Harper era — but whether or not the policies of the previous Conservative government are to blame remains an open question.

Between 2006 and 2015, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in power, after-tax earnings among Canadians grew from a median of $62,700 to $69,100 — an increase of 10.2 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data released on Friday.

“But the gains were very unfairly distributed,” wrote economist Andrew Jackson in a blog post asserting that inequality "surged under Harper."

Temporary foreign workers continue to be hired in place of Canadians despite federal assurances that the Canada’s beleaguered foreign worker program is meant to be a last resort, the auditor general said Tuesday.

"When we decide what fresh produce to buy, we check our fruits and vegetables for colour and blemishes, and we make sure the price seems fair. We’re looking after our families.

But there’s a problem that is not necessarily apparent, even under the bright lights of the produce aisle — one that harms a set of people who are vital to getting Canada’s crops to our tables but get almost no public support. We’re not looking after their families.

Very often, the farm workers who harvest Canadian apples, tomatoes, onions and other crops are from countries such as Mexico and Jamaica. Countries where work is scarce and the standard of living is far lower than it is here.

Farm work is hard. It is heavy, it can be dangerous, and it often demands six or seven days a week. It pays poorly by Canadian standards — typically minimum wage."

"Re the picture above: "Alberta’s United Conservative Party MLA Wes Taylor could not resist attacking NDP Premier Rachel Notley about the high price of bread. Dude had the wrong target. Photo from Taylor’s Facebook page."

"Anatole France, the French poet, journalist and novelist, had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek in 1894 when he wrote: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

The joke and tragedy of Anatole’s musing on the criminal justice system is obvious. The reality is that we are not all equal before the law — not even in Canada — not even in 2018. Poor people are criminalized for being poor. Addicted people are criminalized because of their addiction. And yes, there are many echoes of racism in our criminal law.

But I will let you in on a secret — it is even worse than that. Not only do we arrest, prosecute and jail the poor for minor offences but we also turn a blind eye to large-scale crimes committed by the rich and powerful."

"By approving Site C, Premier John Horgan has made a disastrous decision that will destabilize the provincial economy, increase electrical prices and reduce food security.

Horgan and his cabinet not only damned the public interest but also ignored the alarming science on megaprojects, which is any complex scheme that costs more than a billion dollars.

The business science on megaprojects is unequivocal: nine out of 10 experience cost overruns and delays and they rarely deliver the benefits promised. Moreover, “misinformation about costs, schedules, benefits and risks is the norm,” according to Oxford University’s Bent Flyvbjerg.

Site C provides an appalling example par excellence. The unneeded project started as a $6.6 billion boondoggle in 2010."

"For years, Heiltsuk has warned against the threat of oil spills, but even so, the Nathan E. Stewart oil spill was a devastating wake-up call for us.

On Oct. 13, 2016, as diesel poured out of the hull of the tug that had crashed into critical endangered abalone habitat and onto the shores of our ancient clam gardens, we waited for spill response equipment to arrive."

There’s no telling if the 220 square-kilometres of unlined tailings ponds in the Alberta oilsands are leaking contaminated waste into nearby water sources, according to the government of Canada.

That claim was made in an official response to NAFTA’s Commission for Environmental Cooperation despite strong scientific evidence suggesting a clear linkage between the oilsands’ 1.3 trillion litres of fluid tailings and the contamination of local waterways.

The response comes after a June 2017 submission by two environmental organizations and a Dene man alleging the federal government was failing to enforce a section of the Fisheries Act that prohibits the release of a “deleterious substance” into fish-frequented waters.

An NDP MP is pushing the federal government to recognize National Aboriginal Day as a statutory holiday.

Saskatchewan’s Georgina Jolibois, who also serves as her party’s deputy critic for indigenous affairs, tabled a private member’s bill Thursday inspired by a specific call to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

British Columbia Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver says his party will support a "stable minority" government led by the New Democratic Party (NDP). The deal means the end of of 16 years in power for the Liberal Party in the Canadian province. The Liberals won a slim victory in elections earlier in May, with 43 seats to the NDP's 41. This makes them the first minority government in the province since the 1950s.

OTTAWA — Even before Conservatives began counting the ballots, the ruling Liberals set out to frame the new Opposition leader as a far-right extremist.

Only trouble was, the relentless barrage of email missives from Liberal headquarters in the days and hours leading up to Saturday's vote were aimed largely at Maxime Bernier, the front-runner and presumed winner of the marathon Conservative leadership race.

Canada's press freedoms are under threat, according to the latest World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders. Canada dropped four spots to number 22 on the list that ranks 180 countries based on how they treat journalists. A number of high-profile incidents of police action against journalists in Canada have raised concerns. Press organisations have called on the government to shore up laws protecting free speech and media sources.

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